A new generation of bishops at the time of change

Do you know François Durand? Not sure, right? Yet the man recently had the honor of a long interview of six pages in the newspaper The Lozère. What earned him this interest? François Durand is a very young bishop! At only 51, this native of Puy-en-Velay (Haute-Loire) was welcomed on January 5, 2024 in “his” cathedral of Valencia (Drôme). He thus put himself at the service of a territory which he will take several years to travel and understand.

An adventure all the less banal as the man had started an engineer career in material physics. Having become a priest, he had to take care of a much more human “material”. But by responding to the call to the episcopate, he is exposed even more. “It takes time to become a bishop,” he confides, “but I can say that after a year, it’s starting to come back. I also see changes in what I can express myself in this service. Because for him, things are more and more clear: “We are shaped bishop. »»

This slow learning, they are, in France, a hundred men to experience it. Bishops in place, auxiliaries or emerits (1), they are (or have been) at the service of various, rural or very urbanized dioceses, in mainland France or overseas. And equally diverse Christian communities, sometimes in difficulty. Because if the faithful are often generous and committed, their population is reduced to the congruent portion in many places.

And that of the priests who also accompany them: around twenty dioceses now have less than forty active priests to hold the boat. A recently named bishop confided with a smile: “At least, with such a number, I have no difficulty gathering them all around a table to exchange. »»

Keep the church visible

How to reorganize such a social body so that it remains alive and calling? “It is a tension that is difficult to hold,” explains Vincent Herbinet, historian and associate researcher at the Rhône-Alpes historical research laboratory (2). On the one hand, the territories served continue to expand for the priests and the laity committed.

On the other hand, the dioceses try to create on their territory some attractive missionary centers which contract the space by attracting to them. Many diocesan houses, refurbished to centralize services while showing an active church presence, thus become the beating heart of the diocese. In place of the building of the historic bishopric which speaks of another era. And another way of being bishop.

Because for the bishops themselves, the time is also for change. More than half of them were appointed during the Pope Francis pontificate, with an average age of 64. Two -thirds are now from the middle or upper class, and more than one in two has studied, or even worked for a few years, before entering the seminar – against only two out of five among their emeritus counterparts. Like French society, and unlike the generation of their elders, few grew up in workers or agricultural families.

More field experience

Should we see it as an effect of the church model wanted by Pope Francis? The bishops appointed in recent years are often chosen from men first experienced by the field: parish priests, for example, as was Franck Javary in Bagneux (Hauts-de-Seine), or François Gourdon in Angers (Maine-et-Loire); The first was ordered bishop of Châlons (Marne) on March 1, 2025, the second took the lead in the diocese of Saint-Dié (Vosges) on March 22, 2025.

Or members of ancient congregations, as evidenced by the recent appointments of a Franciscan religious, François Bustillo in Corsica, and a assumptionist, Benoît Gschwind in Ariège. If there are four bishops from the Emmanuel and three of the Saint-Martin community in France, the wind seems to have turned on this side. The apostolic visits underway in these two communities, in order to support them towards a healthier management of authority within them, probably prompted the Pope to a certain caution.

Find an adjusted exercise of authority: a crucial question when you become a bishop, particularly in these exposed times. The tsunami of the scandals revealed within Catholic institutions overwhelmed many officials in office, challenged to unravel the cases often left by their predecessors.

Far from benefiting from a special status, the bishop is judicially responsible, too. “What these crises also revealed,” comments Vincent Herbinet is the glaring lack of bishops for crisis management. ” Result ? A loss of sustainable credibility which has partly extinguished the public scope of their voices.

“Passed by small seminars, and more from popular backgrounds, previous generations presented often more marked personalities. Some of them, we remember, did not have their tongue in their pocket. But what was an asset then no longer seems to be it at the time of social networks, which amplify and sometimes distort any expression.

The figure of the bishop in France seems to be a turning point: long perceived as the Catholic equivalent of the prefect, it has kept important prerogatives (followed by files, human resources management, support for projects), but lost in visibility.

The fact that in certain departments, the bishop is no longer systematically invited to important civilian events testifies to this. Almost a way of entering the rank, while at the time of the elections, for example, their voice still seems expected, at least by a share of the faithful.

But for the legislative elections last summer, only a few dared to express their vigilance in the face of the rise of extremes. Most of the time on their diocesan website, rarely beyond.

Strengthen the collective

For these men who carry a overwhelming human charge, the challenge is also to work better together. Will we see, as an indirect effect of the pooling of priests’ training places-there are only fifteen prohibited seminars in France-a better mutual knowledge of young bishops? If this is the case, it is to be hoped that, during the two annual plenary assemblies, a less formal animation and more in dialogue with the company.

In recent years, the stimulating invitation of secular delegates on issues of ecology and the overwhelming meeting with people in precariousness or victims of abuse have laid first milestones. Bringing this synodal dynamic to life in the manner of François: the stake will be in size for the new president of the Conference of Bishops of France, appointed these days by its peers.